Dynamic Web Development with Seaside

26.2First Example

Let us go over a simple but complete example. We want to develop an application to manage person, address and phone number as shown in Figure 161.

Our adress

We define a class Address with four instance variables and their corresponding accessors.

Object subclass: #Address
instanceVariableNames: 'street place plz canton'
classVariableNames: ''
poolDictionaries: ''
category: 'MaAddress'
Address class>>example1
| address |
address := self new.
address plz: 1001.
address street: 'Sesame'.
address place: 'DreamTown'.
address canton: 'Bern'.
^ address

Then we add the descriptions to the Address class as follows: the street name and the place are described by a string description, the PLZ is a number with a range between 1000 and 9999, and since the canton is one of the predefined canton list (our address is for Switzerland so far), we describe it as a single option description.

Address class>>descriptionStreet
^ MAStringDescription new
accessor: #street;
label: 'Street';
priority: 100;
yourself
Address class>>descriptionPlz
^ MANumberDescription new
accessor: #plz;
label: 'PLZ';
priority: 200;
beRequired;
min: 1000 ;
max: 9999;
yourself
Address class>>descriptionPlace
^ MAStringDescription new
accessor: #place;
label: 'Place';
priority: 300;
yourself
Address class>>descriptionCanton
^ MASingleOptionDescription new
accessor: #canton;
label: 'Canton' ;
priority: 400;
options: #('Bern' 'Solothurn' 'Aargau' 'Zuerich' 'Schwyz' 'Glarus');
beSorted;
beRequired;
yourself

Now we can start manipulating the descriptions. Inspect the description object of the address object:

| address |
address := Address example1.
address description inspect.

Now we can iterate over the descriptions and get the values associated with the descriptions of our address model:

| address |
address := Address example1.
address description do: [ :description |
Transcript
show: description label; show: ':'; tab;
show: (description toString: (address readUsing: description));
cr ]

Executing the second code snippet outputs the following in the Transcript:

Street:    Sesame
PLZ:       1001
Place:     DreamTown
Canton:    Bern

Creating a Seaside Editor. Now we are ready to create a Seaside component automatically in a similar manner.

WAComponent subclass: #MyContactAddress
instanceVariableNames: 'addressForm'
classVariableNames: ''
poolDictionaries: ''
category: 'MaAddress'
MyContactAddress>>initialize
super initialize.
addressForm := Address example1 asComponent
MyContactAddress>>children
^ Array with: addressForm

The method asComponent sent to the address object automatically builds a Seaside component for us. The resulting editor is displayed in Figure 162.

Address example1 asComponent

To enable validation and add buttons to save and cancel the editing process is a matter of adding a decoration. The message addValidatedForm decorates the component with the necessary rendering and behavior.

MyContactAddress>>initialize
super initialize.
addressForm := Address example1 asComponent.
addressForm addValidatedForm

As a result we get a complete address editor, as seen in Figure 163.

Same Magritte generated component with buttons and validation

In summary Magritte is really easy to use with Seaside. You put your descriptions on the class-side according to a naming-convention. You can then ask your model objects for their descriptions by sending the message description or alternatively you directly ask Magritte to build a Seaside editor for you by sending the message asComponent.

Copyright © 19 March 2024 Stéphane Ducasse, Lukas Renggli, C. David Shaffer, Rick Zaccone
This book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 license.

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